An Ol' Broad's Ramblings

Archive for 16 October 2007

I contacted both of my senators, Corker and Alexander, about the SCHIP. I asked them, quite politely not to vote to override Bush’s veto. I won’t go into all my reasons, I shouldn’t need to.

I got a response, no doubt a ‘form letter’, from Senator Corker (Alexander never bothers to respond):

Thank you for taking the time to contact my office about reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Program (SCHIP). Your input is important to me, and I appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts.

On September 27, I voted to reauthorize and fund SCHIP because I believe it has been an important and successful program and because I made a commitment to Tennesseans to do all that I can to expand access to affordable health insurance. While this reauthorization bill is far from perfect, it does ensure that more low-income children in Tennessee and across America will have health insurance, and I chose to err on the side of securing health benefits for millions of needy children. I believe this is our moral obligation.

Please know that much has been said in this debate that is untrue. I want to emphasize that this reauthorization explicitly prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid and SCHIP benefits. This bill requires, for the first time, an established process for states to verify citizenship of enrollees in the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The bill also allows states to create a system using Social Security cards to enforce that citizenship requirement.

As a first step towards comprehensively addressing this healthcare crisis, I, along with Senator Burr (R-NC) and others introduced the Every American Insured Health Act, S.1886, a proposal that ensures all Americans have access to affordable healthcare coverage without contributing to our ballooning national debt. This proposal is meant to be a starting point of a larger debate aimed at addressing a healthcare crisis facing Americas across our country and I look forward to pursuing this important issue.

Thank you again for your letter. I hope you will continue to share your thoughts with me.

Sincerely,

Bob Corker
United States Senator

I have a great deal of empathy (not sympathy….EMPATHY…been there, done that) for the parents of children who don’t have healthcare. Isn’t that why they came up with Medicaid? To provide for those most in need? When did families who made $40,000, $60,000, or $80,000 become a family in need? Perhaps in New York City, or California, where people are damn near taxed to death, but in the rest of the country, someone making 80 grand is doing down right good for themselves, and their families.

I do not trust the government. I really never have. I sure don’t trust them with the healthcare of our children. They can’t even figure out how to balance a checkbook, secure the borders, or keep the citizens safe. And we are suppose to trust them to make sure people aren’t ripping off the system? They haven’t stopped the big rip offs of MediCare! These are the same people who waste time declaring Rush Limbaugh public enemy #1, burbling about a 90 year old incident, that could get our soldiers killed, instead of dealing with serious issues, like protecting the unborn, allowing people to keep their own hard earned money, removing criminal aliens from our streets, and many more too numerous to list.

Perhaps if the government had never gotten into the business of healthcare, and left it to the actual physicians, insurance wouldn’t be so expensive? All the co-pays, percentages of this or that procedure, law suits, etc., have done nothing to improve patient care. It has actually done a great deal of harm.

So, should we trust them in the first step towards socialized medicine? I don’t bloody well think so. Sorry, Senator Corker, you may have just lost my vote!

WHERETHEYLIVE.ORG is founded in the spirit of Thoreau, Gandhi, King, Abdul-Ghaffar Khan, and the many other heroes of principled nonviolent resistance. It will publicize the home addresses of those who are alleged to have seriously abused their power over others, for the purpose of facilitating legal, NONVIOLENT demonstrations on public property outside those home addresses, in accordance with the peopleâ€™s right to petition for redress of grievances as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America, international law, and principles of universal justice.

This from the FAQ page:

So far, the perpetrators of the 9/11 crimes against humanity have walked away scot free. While we do not know precisely what each perpetrator of this complex and murderous covert operation did, we do have a list of suspects. Because of the magnitude of this crime and the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators, we will seek and post home addresses of suspects in the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on 9/11 and during the 9/11 wars.

So, they are going to add stalking to their ever growing list of talents?Â I don’t think the 1st Amendment includes harassment, does it?

Here the â€œFood Policeâ€ are after Hardeeâ€™s for their fifty bazillion calorie breakfast burrito. If someone wants to eat this thing it is their own business. Just like smoking, pretty soon the government will be legislating what we eat and I am tired of it. If someone is fat or chooses to be fat it is their own business. Not everyone can be as slim and sexy as me.

Seriously this is getting to be absurd. McDonalds quit selling Super Sized items after the guy did a documentary about gaining 30 pounds rapidly by eating Super Sized items. Now they are after Hardeeâ€™s and soon they will be going after HoHos, Ding Dongs and Twinkies. Maybe the size increase in our country could be due to a â€œGastric Rebellionâ€ of sorts. The government is taking away every other freedom so just maybe folks are packing on the pounds in preparation for the impending food laws.

I actually think that reverse psychology is working here. The more you tell people they shouldnâ€™t or canâ€™t have something the more that they want it. The more workout videos and fitness shows that come out the more people say no. Leave people to decide on what is right or wrong for themselves. We do not need the â€œFood Policeâ€ or anyone else telling us that a Whopper isnâ€™t fitness food. Just look at the name. Whopper sure doesnâ€™t make me think it is a petite item.

Does anyone else find it odd that the more the gubmint puts limits on our choices, the more people reject the idea of personal responsibility?

Mr Putin did not name any specific country, but his statement underlined Moscow’s strong opposition to US-backed efforts to build pipelines to deliver Central Asian and Caspian hydrocarbons to the West bypassing Russia.

“Projects that may inflict serious environmental damage to the region cannot be implemented without prior discussion by all five Caspian nations,” he said.
(…)
Mr Putin also emphasised the need for all Caspian nations to prohibit the use of their territory by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region – a clear reference to long-standing rumours that the US might be planning to use Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.

Which of course, in turn, would help to save his sorry ass too. Guess this guy really has no clue how dangerous Iran really is, does he.

Appeals judges at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal Tuesday upheld the acquittal of a former Bosnian Muslim army commander over atrocities in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

Sefer Halilovic, former Deputy Commander and Chief of Main Staff of the Muslim-dominated Bosnian Army, was cleared in November 2005 of a single war crimes charge linked to the murder of Bosnian Croat civilians in two villages in 1993.

A five-judge appeals panel at the UN court said prosecutors failed to raise any arguments to overturn the original verdict.

Why do I automatically assume if he wasn’t Muslim, he’d be doing some serious time right now?

According to the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta on Oct. 2, the bank loaned Vick, partner Gerald Frank Jenkins and Atlantic Wine & Package LLC the money on May 23, 2006, and that a default exists “when a material adverse change has occurred in the business or prospects of Defendant Vick, financial or otherwise, as determined bythe bank in its sole discretion.”

Before any of these peck-o-woods get their multi million dollar contracts, they should be required to take a few classes in simple economics. Those numbers may look good on paper, but if you don’t know how to manage it, you are going to be living on the streets when it’s all said and done. It’s a shame they don’t have classes on maturity.

“There is a blossoming friendship going on between American religious and church officials and Iran’s apocalyptic radical president,” he says. “The church officials say they want to avert any major conflict between Iran and the U.S., and they profess to be peacemakers. But in this process of ostensible peacemaking, they seem to want to minimize the Iranian president’s very ugly threat against Israel and the U.S.”

Two words that do not belong together…..religion and left! I’m pretty sure Ahmabooboo had a good chuckle at the expense of the “church officials”.

Ben Mercer, 57, of 23 Champion Ave., is a former human resources director for the City of Fond du Lac. He is now charged with 30 counts â€” not 33 as originally charged â€” of possession of child pornography for allegedly looking at Internet images on his office computer during work hours, according to the criminal complaint.

I suppose, as long as they didn’t drop the entire case, 30 works as well as 33. I’m just glad they weren’t trying this case in Sheboygan!

One day after California became the first state in the nation to ban toys containing toxic plastic softeners, supporters of the measure announced plans Monday to help at least nine other states – and perhaps even Congress – enact similar laws.

The movement to ban phthalates began in San Francisco last year when the city’s Board of Supervisors imposed the nation’s first restrictions on consumer products that contain the chemical compounds, which have been linked to hormone problems in laboratory animals.

Shouldn’t the manufacturers and the consumers be the ones to take these types of steps? NOT the gubmint? We are a consumer driven nation after all. Oh yeah, Mexifornia knows what’s best for everyone. Silly me!

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq — A prosecutor said Monday a former U.S. military police commander aided the enemy by letting top detainees make unmonitored cell phone calls at sites including the camp that held Saddam Hussein. But his attorney described the officer as only trying “to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.”

That has got to be the most misguided thing I’ve heard in a long time. We’re fighting a war against fanatical lunatics, and this guy wants to let the bad guys phone home? Criminy! Do the military have a charge for pure stupidity?

Indonesia warned Tuesday that one of its most deadly volcanos was poised to erupt and ordered villagers on the mountain’s slopes to evacuate.

Mount Kelud, which has been rumbling for weeks, was placed on the highest alert level, meaning scientists believe a major eruption is imminent, said a posting on the government-run volcanology center Web site.

Israel and Hizbullah exchanged the remains of an Israeli civilian for a captive Lebanese fighter and the bodies of two of his comrades on Monday during a swap conducted under tight security at the Naqoura border crossing point. The bodies of two Hizbullah fighters, Ali Wezwaz, from Mais al-Jabal and Mohammad Dimashqiyeh from Aita al-Jabal, along with Lebanese fighter Hassan Naim Akil, were exchanged on Monday in return for the body of Israeli citizen Gabriel Dwait, an Ethiopian Jewish immigrant who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea on January 20, 2005.

While some states have declared blanket moratoriums on lethal injections as they deal with legal challenges to the process, Texas officials have shown no interest in such a move, despite a U.S. Supreme Court announcement last month that it would examine the practice.

Nor should they! These aren’t the cream of the crop we’re talking about here. Honestly, if they feel a little pain before they croak, who gives a happy crap! I honestly think they should die as their victims do, in the very same manner!

From Toronto to Tokyo, American expatriates are increasingly opening their checkbooks to help bankroll a presidential election expected to become the first billion-dollar campaign.

Top Republican and Democratic candidates have even taken their fundraising machines abroad.

Democratic Senator Barack Obama deployed his wife Michelle to London for a fundraiser on Monday, while his rival Hillary Clinton sent her husband, former president Bill Clinton, there earlier this month.

Republican contender Rudolph Giuliani attended a fundraiser in the British capital last month.

When we were looking at this house, I specifically asked the ‘lady of the house’ about the wildlife around here. She responded that she could sit in the kitchen and watch the deer coming out of the trees on the edge of the property in the mornings. Well, needless to say, she was full of sh*t. Not because of what she claimed, but because of what she failed to mention (evil birds and goats!) Oh yeah, there are a few deer. I’ve seen deer…….across the highway in a field, from the kitchen, not exactly close, don’cha know. Ok, once I saw an extremely large…..doe? at the end of the driveway, but that’s pretty much it.

What do we get instead? Why, evil fowl, greedy goats and………….large rat like creatures, of course.

Bob has become a semi regular visitor in the evenings. He’s actually quite funny to watch, so I don’t shoo him off. Hey, we’re in the boonies…..entertainment comes at a premium, ya know. Frik and Frak don’t seem to mind sharing their food with him (?), so why should I? He really doesn’t eat much. No where near as much as those two oinkers. Kind of hard to believe those are the same two scroungy looking felines that showed up a couple of months ago.

Chinese officials warned the United States not to honor the Dalai Lama, saying a planned award ceremony for the Tibetan spiritual leader would have â€œan extremely serious impactâ€ on relations between the two countries.

Either the same person wrote about the Turkey/Armenia, or China is taking it’s talking points from Turkey. Honestly, I don’t think China has much to say right now, since they have a serious lead problem. I don’t know about the administration, but I can tell ya, parents in this country don’t much give a happy crap what China has to say about a truly peaceful man.

â€œSuch a person who basely splits his motherland and doesnâ€™t even love his motherland has been welcomed by some countries and has even been receiving this or that award,â€ Tibetâ€™s Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, told reporters during the congress.

If I’m not mistaken, the Dalai Lama was born in Tibet? Just because the commies took it over, doesn’t make China his homeland.

â€œWe are furious,â€ Mr. Zhang said. â€œIf the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world.â€

Interesting, coming from those who believe justice means you believe only in the party, and nothing but the party….all others will be tortured.

China has pressed the United States to cancel the award event for months. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Jianchao said today that Beijing was â€œstrong dissatisfiedâ€ and warned of an â€œextremely serious impactâ€ if the events are held as scheduled. But he did not say what steps China planned to take.

Are they planning to send more lead? In what form…….THIS time?

This week, Beijing pulled out of a meeting at which leading world powers are to discuss Iranâ€™s nuclear program. Chinese officials cited â€œtechnical reasonsâ€ for not participating, but they left the clear impression that they might downgrade support for international efforts to stop Iranâ€™s nuclear program if foreign powers interfere in Chinaâ€™s internal affairs.

China also recently canceled its annual human rights dialogue with Germany to protest German Chancellor Angela Merkelâ€™s September meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Just why are the Chinese so afraid of this peaceful man?

â€œHe (the Dalai Lama) should resolutely abandon his Tibetan independence stance and activities,â€ Qiangba Puncog said. â€œBut in my opinion, some of those activities are actually escalating and setting a lot of obstacles for further progress.â€